our tour of the boroughs

"hey, it's colin's birthday. i think that we have to rent a hummer limo and drive around to bars in it. everyone bring either a bottle of kettle one or veuve and meet at ted's at 8"

i could feel the hangover creeping up my body as i read that sentence, the headache fading in, my stomach growing nauseous. there's nothing like a solid night of drinking to make me feel old and extremely regretful of my previous night's actions.

so with our white stretch humvee we headed to brooklyn! first stop was a straight bar called barcade where i got some good beer, some beef jerky and played tetris with a cute hipster thing whose pocked i slipped my card into as i left.

it didn't take long for people to get sloppy. we sent one girl home in a cab at the second bar. people started to get to the state where they'd just fall over for no reason. that usually means it's time for me to sober up so that there's at least one person making sure nobody dies. brian's little sister had picked up a guy at barcade who we threw in the limo with us and with whom she was later straddling in some makeout session. brian, the overprotective brother, started crying. we're back in the limo headed into manhattan and people are starting to take their pants off and are "crowd surfing" in the car. drinks are getting spilled, iphones are on the floor are getting drowned in vodka sodas. i'm grabbing the electronics like mad to dry them off, helping the driver navigate, and trying to get brian to breathe (he'd decided he wanted to try to hold his breath through the tunnel which is like a 3 minute ride).

when i got them to the last bar back in hell's kitchen, we still had 25 minutes left so i called it quits and took the limo back home up to washington heights. yeah, that's how i roll!

unrelated: i saw vantage point. as always, stop reading here if you don't want spoilers. first, i hated it. the first 10 minutes of the film was replayed some 6 times. people started loudly groaning at the 4th go-round. for the star-studdness of it all, the actors had such a terrible script to work with that it made even those oscar award winning actors look like novices. i can't even really describe the horribleness of it. there were a couple surprise turns which kept things mildly interesting but for the most part it was an unrealistic story that involved a terrorist group having members that worked for 1.) the hotel where the president was staying 2.) the american camera crew for the news station 3.) the mayor's office in the city of spain where the movie takes place 4.) and most unrealistically, the US president's secret service detail (yeah, whitey matt fox plays some spanish terrorist. nonsense).

forest whitaker plays an american tourist who i think is mentally handicapped who just happens to videotape all the pertinent parts of the terrorist bombing, purely by accident and then chases the terrorists around the city to make a home movie to bring home to his kids. like, seriously, you're at a rally and the thing gets bombed and then you pretend your james bond chasing these people all over the city? no. the worst part happened as the denouement began. dennis quaid, who, through a series of ridiculous events, saves the president (or, rather, happens upon him in a car after an accident that kills his terrorist kidnappers). he says with disbelief, "is that you, mr. president?" and it's meant to be a serious moment and the entire theater bursts out laughing. awful. do not waste your money.